The Progressive Movement In The 1900's

The progressive era was the point in time in which the people of America began to understand the unfortunate circumstances that withheld them, and started to oppose it. In fact several movements were created in order to demolish the political and economic hierarchy that consumed America in the 1900’s. Lower and middle class industrial workers began to revolt, or strike, against their supervisors so they could achieve easier work hours, more wages, and safer environments to work in. Overall, many workers just wanted more rights to work by so their occupation would instead benefit them rather than their successor. These movements also contributed to the women's suffrage movement, whose intentions were to secure more women’s rights, so they would be commonly equal to men. Severe accidents, along with these movements, influenced congress and the government to abide by the people and allow them to achieve more rights. Fortunately these movements also allowed child laborers to receive rights, much like how nowadays, teenagers are not allowed to work for more than 18 hours a week. In addition, to movements and protests by the people, made mundane journalists took to the papers in order to expose the cruel working society. Muckrakers, or these journalists, would use their journal and writing skills to show the “corruption” of political and business leaders that dominated the industrial scene. These Muckrakers were very influential and provided many precedents for the media in today's society, by exercising their freedom of press. Defining freedom is a very hard topic to progress on due to the various opinions other people have on the subject. However, I like to believe that freedom is defined by a person's willingness to work for their role in society. By this I mean that people, who actively exercise their rights and at the same time provide money for their family, themselves, and perhaps other citizens, are the people with freedom. In addition to this, I like to believe that freedom is also defined by the ability to do as you please, along as it is according to the law. However, many people like to take their freedom and abuse it by abusing their free welfare or others may immigrate to the United States, illegally, allowing them to bypass several things that others must go through. Fordism, a term basically coined by Henry Ford himself, was the concept of providing “lower prices” and providing higher …show more content…
These “higher wages” were simply unheard of within that era, and Ford was highly criticized by his fellow competitors because of it. The idea behind these wages was so his own workers and fellow working class Americans would be able to afford Ford’s own products, thus allowing him to make a higher profit off of his own workers. This business concept is well established within our society today, in fact several companies use the “Fordism” precedent to advance their own profits. However, this may come to a standstill as several young workers, being paid minimum wage, continuously protest for a high pay. The minimum wage is asked to be raised to about 15 dollars where as of right now, in Texas, it is about 7.50. In my opinion, I believe minimum wage jobs are for those in highschool, who are looking for a working experience. I don’t think adults should make a living off of one minimum wage